In Spain the producers of a comedy show (Cuerpo de Elite) decided to use the cast and characters of the show in commercials shown during the broadcast. It is very confusing to see the characters start discussing how good a specific tampon brand is.

This is really disappointing because Netflix is far and away better to browse than its competitors. I'll pay for a service or I'll watch with ads. If I don't have either option, a third party website becomes a lot more attractive.

I obviously can’t speak for everyone, but my experience with those autoplaying previews is that the only reason they make anyone choose something faster is to shut them up - not because they make it easier to find something to watch. Similarly, if I’m going through binging a series, I don’t want to be interrupted with promotional material. I think those end caps that auto play a preview if you wait a certain amount of time after reaching the very end of something are about as far as I’m happy for them to go on that score. It’s not broadcast TV, don’t present it as such. I’ve seen other on demand platforms include trails within the assets and it’s never not weird.

As some one on the outside looking in, it has been interesting to watch all the different ways Netflix has found to milk more out of their subscribers over the years. Same with Hulu.

Soon it'll be like in Demolition Man where nothing but commercials will play. There's self driving cars and soon Taco Bell will rule them all! John Spartan must be found and frozen now to save us in the future! lol

As useful as this sounds, I don't think it's going to help. It might give you a month or two of reprieve before they decide it's working fine and push it to everyone, just like what Google, YouTube, and Atlassian have done with their products.

Turning off product testing does not tell Netflix that their UI changes are undesirable; these companies rarely, if ever, ask for feedback on new features (which always falls on deaf ears), and what's worse is that they never allow you to switch off undesirable features or behavior.

Don't like it? Call support and ask them to turn it off for your account. If they can't or won't, stop giving them money.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that the auto-play feature means I’m more reluctant to open the Netflix app now. I used to open the app, then just click around for a while. I never do that any more because I know that if I do I’ll get tons of unwelcome video (with audio) playing any time I pause on an item. Now I only open the app if I know exactly what I want to watch at the moment *and* that it’s already on Netflix.

Look, Netflix. For all I know your stats show that people engage faster/more when scrolling through the app. But your stats don’t show you if your users are just generally more annoyed and they don’t show you if your users actively think negative thoughts about you while using the app. It’s generally a bad idea to transform your customers from happy or neutral to begrudging.

I really really hate to admit it, but I'm part of your problem. I'd agree that the autoplaying background in the menu is something I actively dislike, but I also have to admit that I have discovered some shows I enjoyed seeing after said ads played. And I'm sure Netflix knows this.

This is why all the outcry on social media is pretty worthless to a company that has access to *all* the data. They do know what works, and for all the people that scream and cry about something, unless most of the people actually using the system dislike it just as much they don't care what opinion you think you have.

That said, I watch on a TV and I can mute the sound.

I think there’s a fallacy here.

Quote:

…to a company that has access to *all* the data.

The problem is no one ever has access to all the data. A lot of modern companies just have enough data to *think* they have all the data. In reality, they only have all the data they’re collecting. The overconfidence that they’re getting everything relevant produces bad decisions.

In a professional context, after someone raised objections to a test being run, I heard someone make the comment “we’re testing X, not sentiment”. The problem is they also weren’t *measuring* sentiment. There are very few significant customer-facing changes you can make which won’t have some kind of significant effect on sentiment–and sentiment can have knock on effects on areas of your business that seem completely unrelated to you, sometimes with severe latency. Not measuring a lot of the hard to gather (often subjective) data just helps you convince yourself you’re making fully informed decisions when you aren’t.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that the auto-play feature means I’m more reluctant to open the Netflix app now. I used to open the app, then just click around for a while. I never do that any more because I know that if I do I’ll get tons of unwelcome video (with audio) playing any time I pause on an item. Now I only open the app if I know exactly what I want to watch at the moment *and* that it’s already on Netflix.

Yes... One THOUSAND times YES!

I rarely open Netflix on my Roku anymore precisely because of that damn auto-play thing. Just like you, if I do open Netflix, it's just to go to the thing I want to watch and *definitely* not to just browse to see what they have.

I'll now go to Amazon Prime Video first and even subscribed to Hulu (partially for Handmaid's Tale) because both have a MUCH better browsing experience than Netflix.

Every year there are about a dozen new movies that I actually want to watch, plus a few more worth re-watching from previous years. Netflix streaming no longer fits my needs. I'm seriously thinking of moving back to Netflix DVD by mail, getting one every week or two.

In truth, nothing actually beats owning the physical media (or a digital rip of it), playing it when you want, and trading movies with trusted friends who don't let kids play frisbee with the disks. Old School.

I am honestly not surprised, good content is expensive and netflix seems to have increased their prices as much as they can. i remember a few years back when I had an account still they were really known just for a few good shows and a bunch of crap. this isn't all that surprising.

The amount of content on Netflix is dropping, so while this is still true scrolling around to find a diamond in the rough is more likely to mean you'll hit the end of it.

By trying to "help" customers find content quicker they can cut back on the amount they actually have to pay for. Which I assume is the metric they're going for, keeping people watching with less and less content in the back end. If everyone is watching insatiable (which I highly recommend no one does, no matter how much Netflix pushes it in your face, it's worse than it looks), then they don't need to maintain other content. But if all content is marketed at the same level (you find by scrolling around and looking at reviews) then they'll have to pay for a lot more stuff to be available to suit everyone.

I cancelled my membership 2 months ago because of the "commercials" they were forcing on me.

they do not understand "ON DEMAND" at all. I complained strongly many times over the past 18 months and nothing at all was done save more commercials. I finally said FTFY and cancelled after many years years of faithful watching.

I even spent many an hour correcting the subtitles of English shows as the transcribers do not speak the queens English, many hours and over the years none of my corrections were implemented. young justice, IT crowd, Blacks Books, Doctor Who, and many more subtitle corrections and the time to correct them wasted.

Problem is, Netflix is instant gratification. I'm not fussy about ultra high quality or anything, but on my connection it can take an hour or so to download a decent quality movie, if it's well seeded. Subtitles can be problematic sometimes too, and I like to use them since sound on movies these days is shit.

Sound is pretty good when you go with good quality torrents, but of course with a shit connection waiting hours for your movie sucks vs Netflix. As to subs, if you use Plex, you can set it up with opensubtitles. It automatically downloads subtitles for the stuff you add to your library (if setup correctly). Popcorn time also works relatively well for some things and is almost as instantaneous as Netflix. I'd rather use Netflix but almost anything I want to watch on Netflix Canada isn't there. I mostly keep it around for their shows

Quality varies of course, but I'm talking about the actual mix that comes out of the studio. Dialogue is whisper quiet and anything vaguely actiony reaches hearing damage levels. It's presumably meant to show off what a fancy home theater setup can do, but makes things very unpleasant to watch otherwise.

I mute my entire sound system every time I turn on Netflix, until I play a show.

It's really frustrating.

So do I. Half the screen is taken up with an ad for shows I will never watch with noisy trailers playing. I have to turn the sound off before opening Netflix.

this is exactly why I cancelled, I asked for over a year ( a chat discussion a month) for them to move that to the bottom of the page, or to make it opt in. they no longer make money from me and I no longer suggest them as a good option.

if you do keep with them get a good VPN and connect via AUS, UK, CA and the catalog will change.Rick and Morty and ST:Discovery are both on netflix Aus and UK.

I got one of these ads the other night, and while the show they presented looked interesting, it isn't out yet. So it became as aggravating as third-party ads as far as I'm concerned. And the thought of previews playing while I browse is giving me a bit of a headache. I go out of my way to try to keep ads out of Youtube, I don't want to have to do it here too.

Please give me a way to opt out of these, Netflix. The reason I like you and not Hulu or Amazon Video is because you give me content I want to watch for a flat rate and no bullshit. Don't change this formula.

Oh, they'll gladly give us a way to opt out. For an extra $5.00 / month, enjoy your experience without video suggestions ( or as we call them, ads)!

Every year there are about a dozen new movies that I actually want to watch, plus a few more worth re-watching from previous years. Netflix streaming no longer fits my needs. I'm seriously thinking of moving back to Netflix DVD by mail, getting one every week or two.

In truth, nothing actually beats owning the physical media (or a digital rip of it), playing it when you want, and trading movies with trusted friends who don't let kids play frisbee with the disks. Old School.

Lol nothing beats that? Only if you like watching a tiny fraction of content ever made over and over again, otherwise it’s not good at all.

Yeah Netflix has hands down the best UI from "homepage" through content playback. HBO Now has to be the absolute worst and Amazon isn't much better. I don't know why they don't just copy Netflix.

Yeah....no. From auto-playing when you hover over ANYTHING to randomly moving your tagged list of content you want to watch around the UI, to crap categories, to poor syncing between devices on where you stop and start, to blocking VPN when I'm using it IN the US to access content from IN the US. Seriously. How hard is it to see that my account was created in the US and where my home IP is located. If I use a VPN at a hotel to avoid throttling and have an exit point in the US. Who gives a shit.

Netflix sucks ass. You may not like Amazon, but its UI isn't bad from a navigation standpoint.

+1 to this post in its entirety.

The whole goddamn app industry is like a 3rd grader on four espressos. Everything has to be changed every so often just because.

Netflix...I am a paying adult. I have been using your services for almost 20 years. Quit fucking trolling me. Next step with your UI bullshit...cancel subscription.

If Netflix gives me an unskippable ad, or if they think they've found a way to keep me from muting sound, I have a good way around it. My TV has an OFF button, or I can leave the app.

If they want to become as annoying as DVDs, which when they first came out, boasted about giving you random access but eventually forced you to watch trailers, I will cancel my subscription faster than I stopped buying DVDs.

I'll spend more time looking at Amazon Prime. At least they don't bother me with autoplay.

If Netflix really wanted to test new features, then they’d have an ‘opt out’ option to see how many people dislike the feature.

The auto-play is supremely annoying. Add in ads/previews, and I’m out.

Fine, but don't just say it here. You (and everybody reading this) literally need to close down Netflix as soon as they force an ad on you without a pre-highlighted skip button. When they see that people respond by turning off Netflix, they will get the message.

I'm seriously considering canceling my sub. I already have my premium comcast package and video from amazon with my Prime. Had Netflix for DVD rentals before they had streaming. but last few years I just have the streaming service.

I hate the current preview play when I'm searching something to watch.

These new ads will eventually lead to ads trying to sell me products. Netflix if you need revenue charge me a couple more bucks a month for add/preview free. Otherwise you will be losing my sub, I already have thousands of things I can watch on demand or on my DVR.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that the auto-play feature means I’m more reluctant to open the Netflix app now. I used to open the app, then just click around for a while. I never do that any more because I know that if I do I’ll get tons of unwelcome video (with audio) playing any time I pause on an item. Now I only open the app if I know exactly what I want to watch at the moment *and* that it’s already on Netflix.

Look, Netflix. For all I know your stats show that people engage faster/more when scrolling through the app. But your stats don’t show you if your users are just generally more annoyed and they don’t show you if your users actively think negative thoughts about you while using the app. It’s generally a bad idea to transform your customers from happy or neutral to begrudging.

I really really hate to admit it, but I'm part of your problem. I'd agree that the autoplaying background in the menu is something I actively dislike, but I also have to admit that I have discovered some shows I enjoyed seeing after said ads played. And I'm sure Netflix knows this.

This is why all the outcry on social media is pretty worthless to a company that has access to *all* the data. They do know what works, and for all the people that scream and cry about something, unless most of the people actually using the system dislike it just as much they don't care what opinion you think you have.

That said, I watch on a TV and I can mute the sound.

I think there’s a fallacy here.

Quote:

…to a company that has access to *all* the data.

The problem is no one ever has access to all the data. A lot of modern companies just have enough data to *think* they have all the data. In reality, they only have all the data they’re collecting. The overconfidence that they’re getting everything relevant produces bad decisions.

In a professional context, after someone raised objections to a test being run, I heard someone make the comment “we’re testing X, not sentiment”. The problem is they also weren’t *measuring* sentiment. There are very few significant customer-facing changes you can make which won’t have some kind of significant effect on sentiment–and sentiment can have knock on effects on areas of your business that seem completely unrelated to you, sometimes with severe latency. Not measuring a lot of the hard to gather (often subjective) data just helps you convince yourself you’re making fully informed decisions when you aren’t.

I think this is less a fallacy than a disagreement on how intelligently the data is handled.

Look, judging from these forums there must be like 95 per cent of the viewing public cancelling their subs over not just the interrupting ads, but the menu background trailers too! Right? People won't stand for it!

Yeah. Apparently they will. Because if even just ten percent (or five, or whatever matches the subs they figure they're retaining by keeping interest) did cancel or even complain really loudly in feedback, they will change it back. That's it really. Otherwise their new ad policy will work just fine, until some other disruptive technology comes along (neural-network?) and offers everything just streamed directly into your brain ad-free.

Even though I know how to block it with the Disable HTML5 Autoplay extension (lifesaver for the web nowadays) I can't believe Netflix won't just give people the option to turn it off.

With this, well I doubt I'll ever come back to Netflix. Advertising Prime garbage before playing a Prime video was the reason I cancelled my Prime subscription. Auto-playing inline video was the reason I stopped looking at Yahoo news.

How hard is it to see that my account was created in the US and where my home IP is located. If I use a VPN at a hotel to avoid throttling and have an exit point in the US. Who gives a shit.

Content producers give a shit (as pointless as such things are) and they make the rules. I mean you don't think Netflix chose to start being the VPN police with all the cost and customer complaints that brings. They didn't one day say you know what would be a cool is a ton of new expenses, no additional revenue and pissed off customers.

No additional revenue and pissed off customers. Hmmm. I'm starting to think that's the actual goal at Netflix.